Group Information

Friday, 19 August 2011

Eminem - When I'm Gone

Artist: EminemTrack: When I'm Gone

Year: 2005

Director: Anthony Mandler

Genre: Rap

Main Audience: 16-24

Type:Performance/Narrative

Eminem is well known for his outrageous lyrics and out there videos. He has had several top ten hits and number ones, he has also won many awards. The album that the song comes from was going to be his last, but after having a break he came back with more hits including Not Afraid and Love The Way You Lie (Featuring Rihanna).

'The music video starts with Eminem (as Marshall Mathers) rapping about his life. He's at an open house and he raps on a podium and on a black backdrop with fog. The video features his daughter Hailie Jade Mathers. his wife Kimberly ( to whom Eminem was divorced when the song was released)and his niece Laney whom he raised like a daughter. It ends with Hailie and Marshall and his wife outside and Hailie swinging. Eminem also appears in the video as his alter ego Slim Shady.'

Wikipedia 2011

The song is about how Eminem’s fame of Slim Shady, his alter ego came between him and his family and almost separated them. The video starts with a help group, two people start to speak about their lives, and then Eminem (Marshall) slowly walks to the stand, tension is builds as he makes his way forward. He then starts rapping about his past life, you can see the emotion in his eyes and the soft tone in the background makes it more emotional. Using his own family as the characters in the music video makes it more realistic and again puts more emotion in it. The video is performance based but the narrative is the visuals of his life.

The video shows his chaotic lifestyle, so their is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, as each part he raps the visuals show it stage by stage ('When Hailie is piling boxes in front of the door trying to block it' the visuals are doing the exact same as the lyrics). It is the perfect video for the lyrics, starting off with the help group, it really does capture what his life used to be like and shows his reflection now he looks back on it. The relationship between the music and video is spot on, the tempo and tones of the music is quite dull and the visuals are dull as well, black and grey colours with not much lighting. Also the whole point of the music is to show the emotion so Anthony Mandler has achieved well with this video.